Lecture 8 notes for the module Making Modern Japan (Great Expectations and Hard Times) PO52026A taught by Professor Rajyashree Pandey at Goldsmiths, University of London in the second year as an option module for students studying on the following degrees: BA (Hons) Politics, BA (Hons) Internationa...
Module: Making Modern Japan: great expectations and hard times (PO52026A)
Lecturer: Professor Rajyashree Pandey
Lecture 8: The International Tribunal for the Far East
Outline for todays' lecture:
To cover some aspects of the Tokyo war crimes trial
Talk about Japan's relationship with its Asian neighbours in that context
Japan's relationship with the US today
In order to understand Japan's relationship with the US today, we need to think
about what Abe Shinzō represents.
Japan has had a complicated relationship with the US during the post war period.
Japan sort of acted as the US's policeman in an area where it was felt that
communism was going to take over.
Something changed quite dramatically with the advent of Donald Trump. He echoed
the sentiments that were around at the time in the 80's, namely that Japan trades
unfairly – this was when Japan was at its height, and there were frustrations on how
the US were paying for their security.
It could be said that we are now in an interesting era of strong men flexing their
muscles.
The first thing that Abe did when Trump won was to set up a meeting. He was the
first person to have met with Trump. What's interesting about this meeting is the
ways in which Abe immediately got briefed for the meeting by psychiatrists and
advisors in terms of how he should handle Trump. One of the clever things he did
was to combine Trump’s love of gold and golf by giving Trump a gold plated golf
stick. Since then, Trump and Abe have been in communication more than any other
leaders. The Abe-Trump relationship leads to consequences that are worth
exploring.
We now see authoritarian tendencies taking over many parts of Europe, but also in
Turkey, there's Erdoğan. In India, you think of Modi, and in Japan, you think of Abe,
and for the US, there's Trump. What's interesting is the way in which they're all
concerned with the free press.
One of the first things that Abe said to Trump was:
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